Stopping Over-Medication of People with Learning Disabilities

"The goal is to improve the quality of life of people with a learning disability by reducing the potential harm of inappropriate psychotropic drugs that may be used wholly inappropriately, as a “chemical restraint” to control challenging behaviour, in place of other more appropriate treatment options. It is time for action, it is time for you to lead a medication review of all people with a learning disability, with a view to implementing a planned supervised dose reduction and stopping of inappropriate psychotropic drugs"

Stopping Over-Medication of People with Learning Disabilities (toolkit): Reducing inappropriate psychotropic drugs in people with a learning disability in general practice and hospitals in 2016
NHS England
June 2016

Access the toolkit here.

Safer fluid prescribing

"The National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) released new fluid guidelines following data suggesting 20% of patients receiving fluids suffer adversely (2013). This quality improvement group assessed fluid prescribing in a tertiary teaching centre and introduced a new fluid- prescribing chart to align practice with NICE recommendations."

Safer fluid prescribing at North Bristol Trust: Bringing practice in line with NICE Guidance with a redesign of the fluid prescription chart
J Andersson et al.
BMJ Quality Improvement Reports 2015;4: doi:10.1136/bmjquality.u203816.w1911

Read more here.

Focus on: antidepressant prescribing

"These analyses suggest that there is a complex interaction of factors driving the ever-increasing prescribing of antidepressants – acting at individual level, practice level and across broader society."

Focus on: antidepressant prescribing: trends in the prescribing of antidepressants in primary care (Quality Watch)

R Spence, A Roberts, C Ariti, M Bardsley

The Health Foundation, Nuffield Trust

May 2014

Read more here.